Talk:Theudas
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Expanded? If wishes were fishes...[edit]
The problem with expansion on this particular article is that there are, literally, two sources for any information on the fellow whatever. One is Josephus, who mentions him briefly, and the other is the Book of Acts, which mentions him briefly. In other words, I think a little is all anyone knows, and therefore I'm not sure that the expansion tag is really going to be helpful here. I would love to be proven wrong, though. Geogre 20:29, 21 May 2005 (UTC)
- It's discussed quite a bit in some reliable sources. Eg [1] [2] (p.162), [3] [4]. I should also point out the the mention of the census in the article is a bit problematic as which census it was isn't that clearcut. Dougweller (talk) 06:05, 24 September 2011 (UTC)
- Indeed it is not clearcut, but Acts is addressed presumably to the same Theophilus as Luke's gospel, which had a parenthetical comment about the "taxing" (census) in the days of Cyrenius. The speaker in Acts 5 however is Gamaliel. The fact that Luke does not qualify or comment on Gamaliel's words seems to indicate he was referring to something well known to those present. Have any archeologists discovered the secret cave with the answers to all our questions yet? Oh well.
Thanks for those 4 links. —Telpardec (talk) 02:25, 25 September 2011 (UTC)
- Indeed it is not clearcut, but Acts is addressed presumably to the same Theophilus as Luke's gospel, which had a parenthetical comment about the "taxing" (census) in the days of Cyrenius. The speaker in Acts 5 however is Gamaliel. The fact that Luke does not qualify or comment on Gamaliel's words seems to indicate he was referring to something well known to those present. Have any archeologists discovered the secret cave with the answers to all our questions yet? Oh well.
If Luke in Acts were messing up Gamaliel of 37 AD by having him talk about a rebel of 44 AD, that would be one thing. Luke in that case would be confused and Josephus' passage would be revealing the confusion. But Luke is specifying, in referring to Judas the Galileans' revolt at the census as coming after Theudus that this Theudus was definitely at about the time of Jesus' birth or earlier, not in the mid 1st c. Luke would certainly not be misreading Josephus so badly either that he thought Fabus was ruling at the time of or before Jesus' birth. So either (A) there were two Theudus leaders who got killed, or else (B) Luke is showing extreme lack of familiarity with contemporary Judean history, baldly inventing this part of Gamaliel's talk, and certainly not using Josephus either, or (C) Josephus himself was wrong. Theoretically, each of the three is conceivable.Rakovsky (talk) 19:30, 31 January 2017 (UTC)